Amazon Says Its Data Centers Use 2.5 Billion Gallons of Water

Amazon.com Inc. said its data centers used 2.5 billion gallons of water worldwide last year, or about 5% of the amount metro Seattle consumes annually. The world’s largest cloud-computing company said the disclosure shows that it cools server farms more efficiently than some of its large tech industry peers. Amazon’s announcement arrives amid a politically charged debate over how much water and electricity data centers use. Some states and cities including Amazon’s home base Seattle – have considered or implemented moratoriums on construction of new server farms, in part to allow for further study. Water researchers and community advocates say the only way to understand data center water usage is if Amazon and its peers share more granular data. Gradually, more information about water consumption is coming out. After a protracted legal battle in Oregon, the city of The Dalles agreed to release records showing how much municipal water was being used by data centers operated by Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Utah recently passed a first-ofits-kind data center water transparency law that would require new data center developments of a certain size to disclose annual water withdrawals, among other metrics. “We need more transparency,” said Iris Stewart-Frey, a professor of environmental science at Santa Clara University and lead author of a report on California’s data center water usage. “Then communities will actually know what they’re getting into and can evaluate the costs and benefits, because the situation is very different from locality to locality.” Among the largest cloud companies, only Google and Meta Platforms Inc. provide water usage data for individual facilities. It’s not clear if Amazon’s new disclosure will mollify critics.But Kerry Person, an Amazon Web Services vice president who oversees data center operations, said the company’s data is clear. “If you look at the press right now, the data center industry is apparently consuming all of the water in the world,” he said in an interview. “When you actually look at the data and look at the details, nothing could be further from the truth.”